1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of interactive electronic game devices. More particularly, this invention relates to the field of interactive, multiple-player electronic game devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Video game consoles, such as a Sony Playstation, Microsoft's XBox, and Nintendo GameCube, allow a user or multiple users to play a video game using a standard television set. A user loads a game by inserting a cartridge, magnetic dish, or data-formatted CD-ROM/DVD into the game console. The game console, using its own cartridge adaptor, disk drive, or optical disk reader, reads the data from the media and sends it directly to its internal components for processing and storage. Even though a user may have a working, capable DVD player attached to his or her television set, a typical video game console does not employ its use.
The National Television System Committee (NTSC) Electronics Industry Alliance RS-170a standard television signal is a common standard in the United States for the signal that travels into a television set's input port. In an NTSC signal, there is a time interval called the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI). This is the interval during which the television set's electron gun conducts a vertical retrace (i.e., the electron gun moves from the bottom of the screen at the end of a vertical trace back up to the top of the screen to get ready to scan a new image onto the phosphor). During this interval, image data is not being sent because the electron gun is performing the vertical retrace. However, the VBI interval can be used to send data within the signal. The data sent during the VBI interval is called the VBI data.
Although cathode ray tubes with electron guns are largely being supplanted by liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma technologies which do not require a VBI, the NTSC signal format remains the same.
By Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations, in a standard television broadcast this VBI interval is used to send closed caption data for the hearing impaired. This is not the same as subtitle data for a movie on DVD. Therefore, in a standard television broadcast, the VBI data is used for closed caption data for hearing impaired persons.
Game systems have been developed to encode game data as VBI data, and then to extract that data. U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,239 issued to Lappington describes a system incorporating a settop decoder which uses VBI data. The settop decoder additionally includes a handheld terminal with which it communicates. The handheld terminal has a message display and buttons for a user to input responses. Although a live broadcast may be received, Lappington discloses a video tape recorder used to play a source program of interest. A user can play interactively with the taped program as a game.